


LOST BOY

by autumnmycat



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Abuse, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Drug Abuse, Eating Disorders, F/M, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Medication, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Overdosing, Recreational Drug Use, Self-Harm, Slurs, Suicide Attempt, Unrequited Love, Weight Issues, toxic masculinity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2016-12-29
Packaged: 2018-08-27 01:58:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 5,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8383465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autumnmycat/pseuds/autumnmycat
Summary: Nathan Prescott is a lost boy who is not ready to be found.





	1. Youth

**Author's Note:**

> This is just going to be a collection of drabbles from my rp blog, but I like them, and my blog is dead, so I figured I'd put them here for shits and giggles.

He never realized he was slipping until the first time he hit another student.

It was the 6th grade, and this dude thought he’d be real fucking slick and call him a _fag_. The word was thrown at him out of anger. He didn’t even remember why this guy was angry, but he was, and he said it. And then Nathan fucking snapped.

He reached out, and grabbed the guy’s shirt, and let his knuckles smash against his cheekbone.

The sickening _crack!_ made every single person in the gym stare in his direction, and when he realized what he did and released his grip on him, the boy fell to the ground in a crying heap.

Nathan’s ass was hauled to the Principal’s Office so fucking quick that he can’t even remember  _what_ _the hell_ happened. It was just his hand colliding with this guy and then he’s sitting in these seats with the Principal on the phone with his father.

He thought he should be scared, but he’d been reprimanded enough by his dad to know that he should just expect the ice-fucking-cold shoulder and him being shut in his room. Half of him wished his dad would yell at him, but the Prescotts didn’t fucking _yell_ at each other.

Well, Nathan did, but Nathan was the outcast, the _Black Sheep._ Sean swore he didn’t know where he got it from, but it was obvious that there was something bubbling under the surface of them all. Only Kristine was spared from the drape of darkness that covered their minds. Even his mom, who he hadn’t had a real conversation with for many, many years, seemed to have something coating her actions. 

(Maybe that’s why her tea cup always smelled so _strong_ , like someone had taken rubbing alcohol to the golden porcelain. 

But, who could blame her, really?

It wasn’t like Sean was a saint. In fact, he was pretty fucking awful most times.

(He disappeared a lot of nights with no calls or notes, just disappeared, and Olivia had to grin and bear it. It was no wonder she would often stumble out the bedroom with breath of Highland Park 30.)

Kristine, well, she knew from an early age that something was wrong between her parents, so she got out while she could. She went to a boarding school until college and then went overseas, leaving Nathan with nothing but e-mails and misplaced emotions.

_How could she leave/why do I have to deal with this shit/why is it so much easier for her to get out?_

 

* * *

 

 

Nathan Prescott sits in the red velvet cozy couch and glares at the ceiling.

“It seems like your father’s absence has negatively impacted your outlook on life.”

He thinks he can keep the thoughts inside his head, but they pound against his skull and come spilling out like a bubbling geyser of hatred and cynicism.

“Yeah, no fucking _shit_. Am I fucking paying you for this right now?”

The psychiatrist doesn’t even flinch. He knows how it goes.

“Sometimes it’s best to hear the obvious because it’s hard to put into words.”

When he rolls his eyes, he can practically hear them rattling in his head.

“You act like I _don’t think_ about this shit. I always think about it. Why do you think it’s such a big fucking deal? I know I’m fucking everything up.”

(He knows that the voices inside his head that tell him he’s **A FUCKING MONSTER** are not normal, but he hates the haze that his meds put him in, so he doesn’t take them, but then, it makes the voices worse, and his life starts to fall apart at the seams, but is that better than not being who he actually is, but who he actually is might be the actual worst human being on the plant, so—)

_Oh God_ , is there any way out?

“Well, it’s good that you acknowledge your actions.”

It’s good? It’s good. What even is _good?_ What does he even mean by that? Nathan has never been good. It’s not in his character. Just ask Sean Prescott. Is this guy _lying to him?_

“I’m not coming to these sessions anymore. They’re a goddamn waste of my time.” 

This time, the psychiatrist looks shaken.

“Nathan, you shouldn’t leave right now.”

He gets up and forces himself not to scream in this guy’s face.

“Let’s get one thing straight,” he heaves out, one hand on the door knob and the other pointing in the doctor’s direction, “I can do _whatever the fuck_ I want.”

And the door slams behind him.

 


	2. This Eyesore // It's Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tw: mentions of eating disordered thoughts, weight, weight loss, ect.
> 
> Riperidone has a side effect of weight gain. This is my attempt to answer why Nathan is ordering diet pills online.

Riperidone. Antipsychotic.

_Okay,_ but Nathan’s been there, done that. He’s had his body pumped full of every drug that could possibly help him. This is just another one. No big _fucking deal._

Yeah, really, no big fucking deal. Except you pee a fuck ton. And you’re always hungry. And thirsty. So, like, you eat, right? You drink water or whatever shit is around. Just like you’re _supposed to._ Honor your hunger or whatever new-aged shit they’re spouting nowadays.

That’s all well and good, but when Nathan gets up one day, and he can’t _button his fucking pants_ , well, to put it mildly, everything goes to **_shit_**.

It’s all about _perspective_ , Nathan finds. He never understood why women were so fucking obsessed with food and dieting and _‘oh my god, I lost 10 pounds, Becky! I’m so fucking skinny, lol.’_ But, when you’re suddenly faced with your own humanity, when you suddenly take up so much more _space_ , when your body is suddenly out of your control, well, it’s fucking terrifying. It’s like blacking out after drinking too much and waking up fifteen pounds heavier.

Knowledge is power, right? The internet knows things. Calories make your body run, but ~~**they also pack on pounds**~~. Fat grams support endocrine and hormonal health, but ~~**they give you heart disease**~~. Protein is necessary for muscle growth, but ~~**too much goes straight to your thighs**~~. Carbohydrates make your brain and blood work, but they also ~~**make you fucking fat**~~. BMI, because kg/m^2 ~~**determines your self worth**~~? Diruetics make you pee out weight, but ~~**you could pee too much and have electrolyte imbalances**~~? Cleanses can help you lose 15 Pounds in Three Days, but ~~**they make you binge**~~?

Damn, it’s no wonder everyone’s fat in this goddamn country. No one knows _what the fuck they’re talking about_.

Okay, one thing is for certain: _less calories in and more calories out_ means weight loss. That’s pretty much undisputed. People know how the laws of thermodynamics work. The only problem is he’s so **goddamn hungry** all the time. Like, goddamn, you would think 1800 kcals would be a good amount, but it feels like _he’s dying_ , like his stomach is being ripped out from his body.

Can’t do less/can’t do less/there must be _something else_.

Three days later, he goes to Frank. He gets “diet pills.” Well, yeah, they’re diet pills. They’re fucking amphetamines. They’re the only diet pills that actually work, and they’re illegal because ~~**they can make your heart stop.**~~

Like that’s ever stopped him before.


	3. The Clock // Is Ticking

He feels sick, physically ill. 

The clock on his bedside table goes from 3:38 to 3:39 in an inconspicuous red blink.

Sick,  _diseased_  — that’s how he feels. The apathy he feels is so strong that it is like a deadly disease. The only thing he is not apathetic about is Nathan Prescott because he so very strongly fucking despises himself.

All these people who go around and  _live,_  and he’s stuck in the constraints of his  _mind_ , the fleshy cage that is his body. Why doesn’t anyone else feel crushed by the idea of existing in this reality? Why is he the only one strapped to his bed by a chronic exhaustion and an inability to sleep? Why does he have to just focus on getting up and getting dressed and combing his hair and eating food when other people are getting straight As and launching their photography careers and having meaningful relationships? Where did it all go wrong?

How did it get like this?

The clock goes from 3:39 to 3:40, and it laughs at him.


	4. What do I do now? // Don't keep love around

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's not sure what happened that night, but Mark Jefferson is always willing to fill him in.

The night comes back in pieces.

He has had too much to drink, and his vision swirls around him.

He wasn’t  _supposed to get drunk_ , but yeah, he knows he’s fucking useless _—_ that’s just a  _fucking fact_ , why are we still talking about this _— **goddamn**_. He knows he has to do this because he wants to/doesn’t want to/knows he has to. He holds a red cup in his hand, and he actually might barf, but he knows that he can’t afford to fuck around. He needs this trust, he needs this validation, so he can’t afford to let his conscience get in the way of what he  _needs._

He gives her the cup. He leads her outside. He drives her away. Jefferson gives him alcohol as a reward/payment. He drinks.

Then everything gets a bit dim.

 

* * *

 

He sees her eyes flash fear, and he feels a surge of panic inside his chest, but he can’t exactly get up.

 

* * *

 

His body collides with the ground, and he groans, but he can’t open his eyes because every muscle in his body is heavy with sleep and lethargy. He hears her body hit dirt but no sounds come from her, and he doesn’t know what’s happening. He hears yelling and obscenities stringing together over his head. He feels a fist grab at his jacket, pull him up fiercely, but how is he supposed to stand when he can’t keep his fucking eyes open? 

 

* * *

 

 ** _“_** You are a fucking  _monster, Nathan Prescott—_   ** _”_**

Yeah, no news flash there. He has lurched forward in the passenger side of a car, and his eyes can just barely register the world passing through the windshield. He smells blood and dirt, but he can’t understand why. 

When the car breaks suddenly, his head hits the window next to him, and the world disappears into nothing.

 

* * *

 

 ** _“_** —can’t believe she’s dead because of you—  ** _”_**

His eyes flicker just a bit. He sees a man standing above him, thick rimmed glasses blending into the darkness of a small room with lights turned off. This is all supposed to be a secret, but his anger is a flair that lights up all of Arcadia Bay for months to come. 

Nathan wants to say something/something/anything/anything, but he can’t get anything out before the door to his dorm room slams.

 


	5. Untitled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: self harm, suicidal ideation, attempted suicide

It’s easy to fantasize about death because, y'know, the grass grows greener on the other side and all that shit. He’s fourteen and watching a lot of horror films because they are strangely cathartic in some weird, fucked up way.

Something about the way that death is so artfully presented in film fills him with this weird longing to experience it because life is such fucking drudgery, and he’s only been alive fourteen years, god fucking dammit. How is he supposed to get through eighty-some years more?

Besides, there’s something artful about black and white films that adorn murder with lace and pearls. It frames it in a way that seems less intimidating than those commercials that flash the Suicide Hotline phone numbers in your fucking face. It just feels right, and so, it’s no surprise when his preferred photography style becomes black and white and outlandish.

His preferred state of being is black and white and not wanting to be alive. He feels like it’s fairly obvious, and he doesn’t understand why his parents and his doctors allow him to have all these pills in his medicine cabinet because, honestly, what does a young, depressed, misunderstood boy do with a shit ton of pills? 

If you couldn’t pick it up from the context, it’s kill himself. 

Which he tries. 

But, he wakes up on his bedroom floor, lying next to his own vomit. 

Not even enough to go to the hospital.

Leave it to Nathan Prescott to fuck up dying.


	6. Gasoline // Control

          1.              **_⟪_ ** **Gasoline** **_⟫_ **

Shit.  _Dammit._  

He had done it again. Nathan looks at the bottle of alcohol in his grip, and he feels a bit of panic race through his chest. It’s 1999 Pierre Peters Cuvée Spéciale Brut. It’s pretty expensive shit. But, it’s not the price tag that bothers him, no—he’s rich,  _goddamn_.

The thing that bothers him is that he can’t remember buying it.

Well, he remembers buying  _a lot of things_ , but the whole day had morphed into a bit of a blur—a collection of distorted memories that played as if they had been recorded in hyperspeed. Nathan had been up since the crack of dawn working on photos, working on homework, online shopping, driving around so he could go actual shopping, eating a lot of shitty foods, doing a lot of shitty drugs, and finally, buying some actually pretty nice alcohol with his fake. He’s not sure why he’s done all these things, but he felt  _compelled to_. He had so much energy and so much goddamn pride that he felt like he could do anything. His family is rich, after all. He can do whatever the fuck he wants.

But, the uneasiness that sits on his chest becomes that of paranoia, and as he drives home, Nathan comes to the conclusion that he has to get rid of the evidence—the evidence of his instability, the evidence of his gluttony, the evidence of fucking everything up.

Nathan gets out of his car and rushes into his parent’s home. He rushes upstairs to his room and opens the bathroom door, champagne in hand.

Leaning over the edge of the bathtub, he uncorks the bottle and pours that motherfucker down the drain.

 

* * *

 

2. ** _⟪_** **Control** ** _⟫_**

They had sent him away to Blackwell. Couldn’t handle his impulsiveness under their 5.2 million dollar roof.

Which, all things considered, was probably not the best idea, especially since Blackwell is haunted. The dormitories are, by far, the worst. Nathan lays in bed and hears the hallways echo and groan. It’s 3 am, and Nathan knows that if he falls asleep, the shadows and monsters outside his door will slip through the walls and  _kill him._

So, he doesn’t sleep. He lays in bed until the morning, and then he goes to class. Nathan thinks it’s funny that the teachers always comment on how tired he is because they would be tired too if they lived in a building where the walls were alive.

He tries to keep all these things to himself, but it makes him cry a lot. He sits in his room, and he  _hates himself_ because all he can do is fucking cry, and he can’t even get himself to  _get out of bed_  some days because he is so fucking tired, and the monsters are so  _fucking loud_. Nathan has to get a sound machine to block out the whispers. It doesn’t work too well, but anything is better than nothing.

One day, in science class, he’s sitting at his desk before the lesson starts. He sits there, barely moving, eyes fixed out the window. Even from the main school building, he can hear the whispers coming from the dorms. He hears them all through Ms. Grants’s lecture. He can’t concentrate.

So when Ms. Grant asks him a question—a question Nathan doesn’t even hear—it gives him such a fright that he yells out and— 

—He hears the sound of people screaming and— 

—He sees a chair being flung across the room and—

He’s standing in the middle of the room, looking at dozens of horrified faces directed toward him.

Nathan has to wonder who is in control of his mind because _it’s certainly not him_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If any of you guys follow my other stories, get ready for a hiatus because I'm doing NaNoWriMo, and it's going to kick my ass.


	7. HAPPYLITTLEPILL

Everything you could ever want, served to you on a goddamn silver platter. 

Money can buy _anything, right?_  

He is not happy, so he fills the hole in his chest with cameras and medication. He is bored, so he sips life from bottles. He is gaining weight, so he buys diet pills. He has no empathy, so he attracts psychopaths with his wallet.

Money can’t buy _happiness; don’t you know?_

Yes, money can’t buy happiness, but is anyone really happy? Doubt it. The anxiety that fills his chest tells him, ' _who could actually be happy here?’_ If people could be happy in Arcadia Bay, then why does Frank have such a spectacular business model running out of his shitty RV?

Nathan Prescott counts out 200 dollars in crisp twenties and gets twenty pills in return. They say money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy pills. He’s not sure what the difference is.


	8. Sickening Desire

There have not been many times in Nathan’s life where he has felt still.

Mostly, when he wants something, he feels such an intense longing that it sets him on fire; he becomes anger in his purest form. 

~~(Rachel was this/Rachel burned off his skin with gasoline/Rachel destroyed anything he had that could be considered self-control/Rachel made him realize that he was a ** _motherfucking monster_**.)~~

Intense emotion is so easy, so natural, that quiet moments feel much more profound. But, it’s confusing. It doesn’t make sense. It’s against his constitution. 

So why? Why does this  _specialized genre_  fill him with calm? It’s not inherently calming. It’s actually incredibly horrific. Nathan knows this; he’s not totally emotional inept. He knows he’s wrong. He knows he’s diseased.

And yet—

~~(Watching as a camera steals the consciousness out of small breathing bodies, his mind is blank, only hearing the _click, click, clicks_  of evil immortalized.)~~

Worst of all, when he’s handed the camera, the quiet amplifies. Nathan is not sure how  _nothing_  can be so goddamn loud. Why is it that when he crouches down in front of the Holy Girl’s limp and lifeless form, his lack of affect crashes between his ears in a cacophony of absence? Her blank eyes do little to stir emotion in him. The sound of the shutter opening and closing gives him no sort of thrill.

He’s not supposed to  _be like this_. He’s supposed to have a mind that is loud and bombastic, a mind that screams at him, a mind that makes up images and sounds so he loses trust in his own senses. This is nothing he knows.

So, when he stands up and turns toward his mentor, confusion in his eyes, the older man comes over and takes the camera from him. He assures Nathan that  _this is what passion feels like._  It is a sick and twisted sort of experience that he will fantasize about and crave for the rest of his life.

So, it’s only expected that for the next few weeks, the Dark Room becomes the subject of his dreams—his _Sickening Desire_.

 


	9. Looking up // At you

**_He_** ** _looks up_** , and the glowing beer sign is so bright and saturated that he wonders about nothing at all.

He has his cup, and it is empty, so he stabs the ice with two blue straws. It’s hard not to notice the red and blue accents that the light above him provides. It’s kind of like the whole thing is unreal and imagined. 

He pushes through the crowd, and he hears some guy say, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” over and over and over, and just the sound of those words make _him bristle_ , and he feels like he might fucking punch out someone if he hears one more word out of fucking anybody. 

 ** _She_** ** _looks sad_** , but he’s not sure why. She stirs her drink—her drink that has disappeared too quickly—and her eyes are all but dead. A certain exhaustion is present in her features, but he just can’t fucking understand why. What is it? What is it? What is it? 

She looks at other men in disdain, and they tell her to loosen up, to not look so angry, and  _she bristles_. She turns to him, and her hatred is so apparent in her features that he doesn’t know how to respond. 

"I’m tired," she whispers, her breaths heavy. 

"What do you mean?"he wonders aloud. 

 _ **She looks away**_ , putting her empty glass down. She leaves.

He watches faces pass by. He hears words chatter in his ear. He looks down at his empty plastic cup.

 _ **He looks up**_  the glowing beer sign, and it’s so bright and saturated that he doesn’t think of anything at all.


	10. Untitled 2

Sean Prescott’s eyes always seemed hollow to Nathan. He would look up at the piercing green, and there was no indication of what he was actually thinking.

 _I’m disappointed in you_ , he would say.  _This is not how Prescotts behave,_  he would say.

He never  _physically hurt Nathan_. No, not Sean, at least. Sean was distant. Cold. Calculating. His punishment was to pull so far away that you had to wonder if he even thought of you as a fucking human being anymore. But, that’s enough to get the point across, right?

_~~YOU ARE A FUCKING FAILURE/WHY DO YOU EVEN FUCKING TRY/YOU ARE BETTER OFF DEAD~~ _

But, how did that same man wrap his arms around him, and place him on a swing, and push him until his sneakers kicked holes in the clouds? How did that same man fill him with an importance that would permeate his entire personality for decades to come?

Sean had the uncanny ability to, on one hand, give him all the confidence he could ever hope to have and, on the other, break Nathan down until he came toppling over like a gutted skyscraper. But, there are no skyscrapers in Arcadia Bay, so Nathan would just have to do.

It was especially hard to stand tall when your very essence is attacked on a daily basis.

 _Nathan, stop talking to yourself,_  he would say.  _Nathan, don’t act like such a fucking faggot_ , he would say.

Nathan, being all of ten years old, was not entirely sure what some of the words meant that his dad would say. But, he knew it was bad, that  _he_  was bad.

~~(Nathan found out later what it meant to be called _that_ , and he was so horrified that he didn’t look in another boy’s eyes for an entire week because,  _Jesus Christ,_  what if his dad wasn’t the only one who thought he was  _like that?_ )~~

The older that Nathan got, the less his dad actually acknowledged his existence. It was also possible that this was due to the fact that Nathan’s mental illness became more and more visible as he got older. At first, he wasn’t sure why he felt so extraordinarily self-important, so  _God-like_ , and why he felt the need to let everyone know about it.  

But, Sean would have none of that.

 _Stop fucking yelling, goddammit!_  he would say.  _You’re worse than your fucking grandfather,_  he would say.

Nathan wasn’t sure what he meant by that, not knowing his grandfather because he was dead, but obviously, it was meant as an insult.

It became strikingly apparent that Sean wanted nothing to do with Nathan, so it’s no wonder he began seeking out his affection from elsewhere.

 


	11. Untitled 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is slightly AU because Nathan actually isn't in Max's photo class, soz everyone
> 
> Also, implied Jefferscott if you squint

They sit in class, and the tension is heavy.

Max gives him the side eye. Nathan lets a sneer pull at his lips. Mark gives him a different sort of look all together.

Mark’s eyes have some sort of a glint in them as he asks Nathan to read a passage from the textbook, but Nathan isn’t having any of his shit.

"I’m not fucking doing that."

The rest of the class freezes. They know Nathan is a loose cannon, but there are just some things you  _don’t do_ , and swearing at the teacher is one of them. 

"Okay, Nathan. That’s not appropriate."

"That’s some  _fucking funny shit_  coming from you."

Max’s eyes widen. She’s not seen Nathan like this before, only heard about his outbursts from second-hand sources. You can tell by the look on her face that she can barely comprehend someone stepping out of line like this.

But, it’s not like Nathan doesn’t have a reason to be so fucking shitty.

" _Nathan._ "

He stands.

"Leave me _the fuck alone_."

It’s funny how he used to look up to this man. But, now, all he can see are the horrors here. He wants to pull away, to rebel, but every act against him digs Nathan’s hole even deeper. Jefferson might as well bury him in an unmarked grave, while he’s at it.

Nathan kicks his chair, and the screams of fear are enough to send a shock through his body. He turns and catches the fucking  _doe-eyed_  look of horror on Max-fucking-Caulfield’s face, and he feels anger swell in his chest.

"Fuck off."

And Nathan, even with Max's and Mark’s eyes on him, takes a deep breath and removes himself from the situation. He will be getting an angry e-mail from his father later. Like he cares. Who fuck the cares?

Who  _the fuck cares?_

Not him, that’s for fucking sure.


	12. Give you a minute // When you needed an hour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know i just updated today but also this is probably my favorite oneshot also im so anxious so im just going to post this anyway :)

She is the girl of sunlight, hair of sunrise, eyes of midday.

He tries so hard to keep his anger and his psychosis under wraps. It is difficult, but for her, he’ll do  _anything_.

They do everything together for a while. He thinks he has it in the bag. She looks at him and smiles, and his heart leaps out of his body and steals his breath away. They walk to the beach and smoke weed, and they throw sand and seaweed at each other, and they laugh, and he has never ever ever felt so normal around anyone in his  _entire life_.

They sit on swingsets in the playground, and they are much too old because they smoke cigarettes, and it is very clear that they are not children anymore. A bird drifts overhead, and she looks up, smoke trailing from her mouth in a trance-like state.

They sit on his bed in the dorm and listen to vinyl because he is a campy fuck who has all this old shit like a record player and polaroid cameras. She  _loves_  it, eats it up like it’s angel cake. She flips through his photography books, and he so dearly wants to reach out and touch her, but he feels like that is too much too soon.

They defile a church. It is a Wednesday night, and there’s no one around, so they run through the pews, and they smoke cigarettes, and they run across the seats, and they pretend to get married. Nathan feels pretty certain that they are on the same page because you don’t just fuck around about that stuff, right?

 _Right?_  

They dance around the hallway of the boy’s dorms because no one gives a fuck about what he does in the dorms that his father owns. She pretends to be on  _America's Next Top Raptor Model_ , hands in claws pressed close to her body, but she somehow does it with an aesthetic of calm and confidence. They laugh, and she wraps her hands around his head, and they wrestle themselves to the floor.

He thinks that this  _is it_ , that this is the moment he’s been looking for, so his hands are beside her ears and his mouth is on hers.

_She bristles._

She shoves him off her, and she has fear and betrayal plastered on her face. She has had work done in order to be the winner of  _America's Next Top Raptor Model._ She gets up and pushes her hair back and  _fucking leaves_ , mumbling something about forgetting about the whole thing.

Nathan Prescott, at a Vortex Club party, hands Rachel Amber a cup of punch that has been modified to make her bend to his whim. 

Nathan Prescott looks at Rachel Amber on the white tarp and pretends like it’s alright. 

Nathan Prescott looks at the picture he drew that says Rachel Amber’s name over and over and over again.

Nathan Prescott stands over Chloe Price’s body and takes pictures because how dare she spend so much time with Rachel Amber? 

Nathan Prescott looks at Mark Jefferson, and he feels so much hatred directed toward himself because how could Rachel Amber love so many people, but she just couldn’t love him?

 


	13. Untitled 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: eating disorders

**_“_** I’m allergic to gluten.  ** _”_**

Victoria laughs.

**_“_** Oh, come  _on._  Have you become a forty-year-old suburban woman? You’re not  _allergic to gluten._   ** _”_**

Nathan frowns but doesn’t argue.

**_“_** Bread makes me feel like shit. I’m not eating it anymore.  ** _”_**

Victoria looks uncomfortable.

**_“_** _Nate_ , you know it’s not good to, like,  _cut out whole food groups._   ** _”_**

Nathan sneers.

**_“_** Oh  _yeah_ , you’re so fucking  _righteous_. Bumming my diet pills and shit. Don’t give me a fucking lecture.  ** _”_**

Victoria’s shoulders fall. 

**_“_** Oh- _kay_. Jesus. Just don’t go too overboard,  _okay?_.  ** _”_**

Nathan turns away, a finger pressed to his temple.

Asking him not to go overboard is like telling the sky not to be blue. Victoria, of all people, should understand this.

~~It makes him very, very sad that she doesn't understand this.~~  

 


	14. Tell me all the things that make you feel // At ease

He’s down to his skin and bones, and his mother can’t put down the phone — she keeps asking how he’s doing all alone.

And the truth is that everything’s falling apart, and the wolves are clawing at his heart, and his home has never felt this far. 

Down XX pounds. He’s not eating well. Stress, maybe? Intention, definitely. It’s what makes him feel  _At Ease._  It’s easy to focus on one thing, to focus on denying himself, to focus on the hunger/ _hunger/ **hunger**_ , than it is to admit that everything’s falling apart. 

Everything’s driving him  _crazy_. Every time he thinks it’s going to be better, he picks his head up, but it gets him nowhere.

It might be because he’s impulsive, and he’s very slowly chipping away at his own sanity, treading the thin line between coping and actively self-destructing. Is there a difference? Is there anything that’s stopping him barreling full speed across that line and totally uprooting his entire fucking life in a flurry of vibrant shades of crimson, black, and gold? 

Good God,  _Good God_ ,  ** _Good God_** , please — could you  _make it stop?_

He’s down to his skin and bones, and his mother talks to him on the phone, and he wishes that he wasn’t this far from home. But, when your home is not somewhere you can go back to, it’s less of an option and more of an unrequited desire. Not like it was that great anyway. But, at least, his sister wouldn’t allow him to fall apart at the seams. He couldn’t be like this around his parents, as much as they would like to ignore him/to pull away. But, Blackwell makes it easy to completely unravel. When you can shut yourself in your dorm room and drink yourself to death day in and day out, what is there to stop you from wasting your life away over and over and over again?

Doesn’t help/ _doesn’t help_ / ** _doesn’t help_**.

But, for a moment, he can feel  _at Ease_.

 


	15. It's isolation // Mark the earth around you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nathan contemplates his own humanity. It's the only thing he can do to stop himself from bursting at the seams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: self harm and implied Jefferscott

Everyone always says that hurting yourself takes a certain rejection on your own humanity because the natural reaction to existing is self-preservation. This always struck Nathan as weird because he  _has never had a problem_  with causing himself pain. In fact, it is  _so easy_  to fall into the trap of chewing his lip open or letting his hand hang too long on a hot pan or being a little too reckless with scissors or drinking way, way too much or doing absurd combinations of drugs. So, when people tell him that they could never hurt themselves, Nathan _doesn’t_   _really believe them._  

Nathan wonders what other people do to quell the frantic yelling that plagues their mind or to make the horrific anxiety go away. What do people do to dull the fear that builds up in their chests and threatens to burst their ribs open and let blood and guts run on the floor? Do they just sit there and take it? Do they decide it’s okay and then move on and do other things? How do they do that? How do they not automatically fall into blades and needles and ethanol? It’s so easy. It’s so fucking easy.

So, how do people do it?

 _You can’t drink on your medication,_  they say. Nathan laughs and drowns himself in whiskey, and he wonders the next day why he blacked out. He thinks hard about whether it’s worth being on a medication that won’t let him drink. Psychosis really isn’t that bad in the grand scheme of things if you have a bottle of poison next to your bed. But, then, he thinks of someone like Victoria who can function fairly well without being fucked up, and he wonders how she does it.

 _You have to stop hurting yourself,_  they say. But, it’s really not his fault, it just happens because it is so easy. He has to consciously stay away from anything that could hurt him, and that’s very difficult when you go to Blackwell Academy and literally everything is trying to force you into sharp corners and men with deceptively soft eyes. He finds that it is easier to just let it happen than actively try to avoid it. But, then people tell him that they could never hurt themselves, and Nathan has to wonder how they do it.

There’s gotta be something wrong with him. Why is  _everything/everything/everything_  so  _goddamn hard_ , so **_goddamn unfair_** _?_

Nathan has to wonder why he's like this and why no one else seems to care.


	16. When you're just getting by // Or happily terminal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nathan is in the prime of his existence.

_**Best years of your life/best years of your life/best years of your life** _

Nathan wonders how these could be the best years of his life when he is filled with such extreme apathy and discontent. Is this all there is? Does it get  _worse than this?_  The idea frightens him more than drugs and blades do because at least they numb/at least they help/at least they have a beginning and an end.

Life has an end, though, right? But, it’s elusive, too far away from him to reach. He needs to get just a little farther.

Rush closer to the end. It helps, right? Body/mind pollution _._  He asks his bottles and pills if they could please kill him. They never manage to. So, he just kind of manages to live.

Healthy isn’t fun or amusing. Not that he knows what “healthy” is anyway. He can barely get through a day let alone be a  _responsible adult._  Good God. The only reason why he’s living his life a million miles an hour is because everything else feels like  _a fate worse than death_.

What do you do? What do you do?  _Self_ -medicate/ _self_ -mutilate/ _self_ -devastate. That’s bad. Don’t do that. You could die, don’t you know?

 ** _“_** Yeah. I know. Isn’t that the point?  ** _”_**

You shouldn’t want to die. You have a life to live. You have friends and a family. You shouldn’t do these things.

 ** _“_** Okay. But, what do I do to make it stop?  ** _”_**

The bottle stares back at him, but it doesn’t have an answer. Neither does anyone else. 

_**Prime of your existence/prime of your existence/prime of your existence**  _

Yes, they say this is the prime of his existence. But, he thinks he knows the truth. So, forget what he needs. He’ll do what he wants, and it should be fine.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all I have. Subscribe to my other stuff if you care to. Thanks for reading this left over crap from dead blogs.


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